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the hunchback of notre dame-第43章

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ht of God; and never to have any other wife; any other child than the happiness and fortune of his brother。  Therefore; he attached himself more closely than ever to the clerical profession。  His merits; his learning; his quality of immediate vassal of the Bishop of Paris; threw the doors of the church wide open to him。  At the age of twenty; by special dispensation of the Holy See; he was a priest; and served as the youngest of the chaplains of Notre…Dame the altar which is called; because of the late mass which is said there; ~altare pigrorum~。

There; plunged more deeply than ever in his dear books; which he quitted only to run for an hour to the fief of Moulin; this mixture of learning and austerity; so rare at his age; had promptly acquired for him the respect and admiration of the monastery。  From the cloister; his reputation as a learned man had passed to the people; among whom it had changed a little; a frequent occurrence at that time; into reputation as a sorcerer。

It was at the moment when he was returning; on Quasimodo day; from saying his mass at the Altar of the Lazy; which was by the side of the door leading to the nave on the right; near the image of the Virgin; that his attention had been attracted by the group of old women chattering around the bed for foundlings。

Then it was that he approached the unhappy little creature; which was so hated and so menaced。  That distress; that deformity; that abandonment; the thought of his young brother; the idea which suddenly occurred to him; that if he were to die; his dear little Jehan might also be flung miserably on the plank for foundlings;all this had gone to his heart simultaneously; a great pity had moved in him; and he had carried off the child。

When he removed the child from the sack; he found it greatly deformed; in very sooth。  The poor little wretch had a wart on his left eye; his head placed directly on his shoulders; his spinal column was crooked; his breast bone prominent; and his legs bowed; but he appeared to be lively; and although it was impossible to say in what language he lisped; his cry indicated considerable force and health。  Claude's compassion increased at the sight of this ugliness; and he made a vow in his heart to rear the child for the love of his brother; in order that; whatever might be the future faults of the little Jehan; he should have beside him that charity done for his sake。  It was a sort of investment of good works; which he was effecting in the name of his young brother; it was a stock of good works which he wished to amass in advance for him; in case the little rogue should some day find himself short of that coin; the only sort which is received at the toll…bar of paradise。

He baptized his adopted child; and gave him the name of Quasimodo; either because he desired thereby to mark the day; when he had found him; or because he wished to designate by that name to what a degree the poor little creature was incomplete; and hardly sketched out。  In fact; Quasimodo; blind; hunchbacked; knock…kneed; was only an 〃almost。〃




CHAPTER III。

~IMMANIS PECORIS CUSTOS; IMMANIOR IPSE~。



Now; in 1482; Quasimodo had grown up。  He had become a few years previously the bellringer of Notre…Dame; thanks to his father by adoption; Claude Frollo;who had become archdeacon of Josas; thanks to his suzerain; Messire Louis de Beaumont;who had become Bishop of Paris; at the death of Guillaume Chartier in 1472; thanks to his patron; Olivier Le Daim; barber to Louis XI。; king by the grace of God。

So Quasimodo was the ringer of the chimes of Notre…Dame。

In the course of time there had been formed a certain peculiarly intimate bond which united the ringer to the church。 Separated forever from the world; by the double fatality of his unknown birth and his natural deformity; imprisoned from his infancy in that impassable double circle; the poor wretch had grown used to seeing nothing in this world beyond the religious walls which had received him under their shadow。 Notre…Dame had been to him successively; as he grew up and developed; the egg; the nest; the house; the country; the universe。

There was certainly a sort of mysterious and pre…existing harmony between this creature and this church。  When; still a little fellow; he had dragged himself tortuously and by jerks beneath the shadows of its vaults; he seemed; with his human face and his bestial limbs; the natural reptile of that humid and sombre pavement; upon which the shadow of the Romanesque capitals cast so many strange forms。

Later on; the first time that he caught hold; mechanically; of the ropes to the towers; and hung suspended from them; and set the bell to clanging; it produced upon his adopted father; Claude; the effect of a child whose tongue is unloosed and who begins to speak。

It is thus that; little by little; developing always in sympathy with the cathedral; living there; sleeping there; hardly ever leaving it; subject every hour to the mysterious impress; he came to resemble it; he incrusted himself in it; so to speak; and became an integral part of it。  His salient angles fitted into the retreating angles of the cathedral (if we may be allowed this figure of speech); and he seemed not only its inhabitant but more than that; its natural tenant。  One might almost say that he had assumed its form; as the snail takes on the form of its shell。  It was his dwelling; his hole; his envelope。 There existed between him and the old church so profound an instinctive sympathy; so many magnetic affinities; so many material affinities; that he adhered to it somewhat as a tortoise adheres to its shell。  The rough and wrinkled cathedral was his shell。

It is useless to warn the reader not to take literally all the similes which we are obliged to employ here to express the singular; symmetrical; direct; almost consubstantial union of a man and an edifice。  It is equally unnecessary to state to what a degree that whole cathedral was familiar to him; after so long and so intimate a cohabitation。  That dwelling was peculiar to him。  It had no depths to which Quasimodo had not penetrated; no height which he had not scaled。  He often climbed many stones up the front; aided solely by the uneven points of the carving。  The towers; on whose exterior surface he was frequently seen clambering; like a lizard gliding along a perpendicular wall; those two gigantic twins; so lofty; so menacing; so formidable; possessed for him neither vertigo; nor terror; nor shocks of amazement。

To see them so gentle under his hand; so easy to scale; one would have said that he had tamed them。  By dint of leaping; climbing; gambolling amid the abysses of the gigantic cathedral he had become; in some sort; a monkey and a goat; like the Calabrian child who swims before he walks; and plays with the sea while still a babe。

Moreover; it was not his body alone which seemed fashioned after the Cathedral; but his mind also。  In what condition was that mind?  What bent had it contracted; what form had it assumed beneath that knotted envelope; in that savage life?  This it would be hard to determine。  Quasimodo had been born one…eyed; hunchbacked; lame。  It was with great difficulty; and by dint of 
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